Tag Archives: honor

Religion and Politics

Thoughts Toward Sunday

The lectionary readings this week will be Amos 8:4-7, Psalm 113, 1 Timothy 2:1-7 and Luke 16:1-13. I haven’t normally focused on the weekly texts, but this group was arresting.

 The texts for this Sunday’s reading are strongly fitting as a warning against the class envy and class warfare being promoted in current political action. Our president regularly castigates “the rich”and“fat cat CEO’s” and “greedy bankers.” Yet he himself lives like a very greedy showoff with parties and vacations back to back while scorning traditional American values such as hard work, personal integrity, and the ability to prosper in an environment that promotes free enterprise. Our president behaves as if his office is a mandate to destroy American prosperity that grows out of opportunity for all in the name of “spreading the wealth around.” His method for achieving this objective is to abrade the citizens with the notion that people who are poor today would be rich if only the rich had not stolen all the wealth. Any person who understands economics knows what a big lie this is. This week’s lectionary readings completely disassemble such a notion.

 To our president, Amos would say, “Hear this, you that trample on the needy.” Likewise to our congress. The policies and legislation passed by our national leaders have increased the number of “the needy” to record levels. (“Needy” means people living on incomes less than the current legal definition of the poverty level.) Our leaders continue to trample on the needy by pushing more and more people into dependence on government, while simultaneously stealing more and more of the nation’s wealth by oppressive taxation and by policies that make it impossible for free enterprise, the source of employment for everyone, to thrive. Further, our leaders refuse to do the work of government to protect the nation from invasion, choosing rather to encourage an invasion of illegal aliens by the means of a refusal to enforce immigration laws.

 Luke would say that these people are like the faithless manager. This man was accused of abusing the trust of his employer, and as soon as he was called to account, he proceeded to abuse that trust even more. When he ordered all the customers to reduce the amount owed on their bills, he quite literally stole the reduced amount from his employer. He did it to buy friends. Our leaders do the same thing by injecting the DREAM act into a bill to fund our national defense.

 What a perfectly ridiculous joke! To couple funding for defense with legislation that will legitimize the most destructive invasion we have ever experienced is an outrageously obvious attempt to buy friends from among the enemies of our nation’s already battered economy. The government leaders, like the steward who wanted to create a safe haven for himself, are buying votes, just as the “steward” bought friends, from the very people who are poisoning our economy, siphoning off the wealth of our nation to other countries and reducing the number legitimate job opportunities for legitimate citizens. Not to mention the overwhelming difficulty for law enforcement created by burgeoning drug merchandising and human trafficking coupled with the crushing load on American social services expected to serve people who ought to be demanding that their own country do a better job of serving them.

 Paul says that we should pray for people in high positions. He does not say that we should pray for them to continue to oppress us. Rather, we should pray that they will do their work of protecting us from foreign invasion and the work of keeping order domestically that we may be able to live in peace and prosperity.

 Psalm 113 puts it all in perspective. People dare not hope in the government we endure in time and space. This world’s institutions are temporary and broken. We don’t hope in government; we hope in God. We live our lives in relationship with God no matter if we are rich or poor in the time/space sense. We look at our lives in relationship with God, and we are rich. Our gratefulness for the fruits of that relationship enables us and motivates us to be kind and generous to the poor. We trust God to accomplish his sovereign purpose, and therefore, we live lives made righteous by God’s grace, loving and serving our neighbors as citizens of his kingdom.

 In the context of God’s kingdom, self-centered, arrogant, wicked government leaders will ultimately be judged for their failure to serve God and the people. As the proverb says, the wheels of God grind slowly, but they grind exceeding fine.

Religion and Politics

Pray for the Government?

I pray for government every week. I started doing this a little over a year ago after visiting the National Day of Prayer website. I borrowed their concept of praying for some aspect of our national life every day, but I modified the list a bit. I pray for government every Monday. My high-level prayer is that everyone in government will act with integrity and serve the people according to local, county, state and national law. Beyond that, I pray about specific issues in these various realms. It all sounds fairly benign when stated that way. I might just say “Bless everyone in government and keep our country safe,” but that is not nearly enough.

Praying for government is complicated. For starters, everyone in government, whether elected, appointed, or hired through some civil service process, is a human being. They are all sinners, just like me, and they all do things that make me crazy. Just because they are human. That, unfortunately, is the start, but not the end of the problem.

At every level, there are some people who are in it for what they can get out of it. They have figured out how to scam the system or beat the system to some advantage for themselves. They lie to the public, they lie to each other. They steal by deception or by blatant theft. In most cases, I only suspect, but I don’t have facts to support an accusation of outright criminal fraud. It is hard to pray for such people. I don’t know how to word a truthful prayer.

There are people in government who, to all appearances, serve with integrity and honor – until they don’t. It is easier to pray blessings on someone whose behavior and character appear to be honorable. It is a deep wound to discover that some of them have feet of clay. That discovery is such a challenge, especially if they retain their position of trust after I no longer trust them.

The biggest challenge is the political ideologies that I consider destructive and even unlawful. When I read that some politician or public official has embarked on a program that I consider to be sidestepping or even completely in opposition to our constitution or our laws, I can hardly bring myself to pray blessings on that person. I certainly cannot pray for the success of the program. My prayer is confused and halting. I am angry. I am hurt. I am afraid for the future.

It is even worse when day after day I hear national, state and local leaders line up to support this destructive action. I can pray that the program will be defeated or ended, but that is more like wishful thinking than prayer. In fact, my mental churning and emotional stew makes it very difficult for me to pray about these issues.

One day I wrote to a blogger whom I have long admired. We share a common political viewpoint, but we also share faith in Christ. I observed that even when she had to speak in opposition to a program or a candidate, she retained a level of focus that avoided the ad hominem attacks that so often cloud the issues in the public forum. I asked her how she keeps that clear perspective on the issues without scorning the human being. Her answer was very clear.

She said that she prays for the salvation of every person in government every day. Knowing that God sent Christ into the world in order that the world might be saved, she focuses her prayers on God’s will that all of us be transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit. I was humbled. I knew immediately that she was right. God’s purpose for each of us is to know Christ and to be reconciled to God through him. We are all failing in our obedience, no matter our level of relationship with Christ, so it is always right to pray that each person will come to know him in a relationship shaped by love and grace.

Now I keep that prayer uppermost when I pray for our government. I still pray about the issues. I think God had a hand in the formation of the USA. The people who wrote the Declaration of Independence, the people who fought the Revolutionary War, the people who wrote our Constitution and who served as our early leaders all testified to faith in God, both in their lives and in the words they wrote in our founding documents. They relied on God for guidance in the establishment of our country. They, like me, were imperfect, but they did what they did as an outgrowth of their relationship with God. So I feel confident that God cares what becomes of us.

Therefore, remembering that God worked through flawed human beings to achieve his purpose in the founding of this country, I pray that he will continue to do that. I ask for his guidance in understanding the issues. I ask for his leadership in shaping my actions and comments with regard to the issues. I pray fervently for his will to be done in all things.

I pray for our government, and when I do so, I pray for myself. In this country, we can never exempt ourselves when we criticize the government, for we are the voters who elected the leaders who do the government’s work. If we really want the government to work the way God wants it to work, then we are all called to be God’s faithful servants, obedient to his will in our lives, including the way we vote. I have come a long way since the day I prayed for the defeat of a bill I thought was bad. We may be unhappy with our government for doing things we never expected when we voted for the incumbents, but we must always remember that in this country, at the most basic level, the government is us. We must pray fervently the petition in the Lord’s Prayer that says, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Then we must speak and act and vote in accord with God’s will as we best understand it, and pray with love that our elected leadership will do the same.